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VINYL PLAYGRADE:(?) |
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Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus |
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Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus |
This music can have real Rock and Roll POWER -- if you’re lucky enough to own a pressing with all the energy of the master tapes inscribed in its grooves. Some have it and some don’t. Welcome to the world of analog, where no two copies sound the same and most are nothing special. (No two covers of this album look the same either. Get a pile of them out and see if you can find two that match. It’s not easy.)
What to Listen For (WTLF)
The sound on the best copies is meaty and punchy down low. More remarkable, the best pressings also come without the upper midrange boost on Sting’s vocals that would normally have you reaching to back off the volume. The choruses get LOUD and are so POWERFUL on the better copies that they make a mockery of most of the pressings we played.
I've been struggling with Synchronicity since it came out way back in 1983. It took a long time to get to the point where we could clean the record properly, twenty years or so, and about the same amount of time to get the stereo to the level it needed to be. It's not easy to find a pressing with the low end whomp factor, midrange energy and overall dynamic power that this music requires, and it takes one helluva stereo to play a pressing with all those qualities too.
As we've said before about these kinds of recordings -- Ambrosia; Blood, Sweat and Tears; The Yes Album; Dark Side of the Moon, Led Zeppelin II -- they are designed to bring any audio system they come in contact with to its knees. If you have the kind of system that a record like this demands, you are going to hear some amazing sound when you drop the needle on these Hot Stampers.
Hugh Padgham Is The Man
If you have the right pressing this album can be a real sonic tour de force. Credit must go to producer and engineer HUGH PADGHAM, a man who's worked with the likes of XTC, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Genesis, Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Those bands make the kind of music that make good use of Padgham trademark sound: wall-to-wall, deep, layered, smooth, rich and stuffed to the gills. The Police with Padgham's help have here produced a real steamroller of an album in Synchronicity.
Musical Appreciation
In the old days I didn't care much for this album; it always sounded commercial in the worst sense of the word: thin, bright, pinched and compressed like a 45 single, perfect for FM radio but perfectly deadly on an audiophile turntable. I couldn't get past the sound in order to hear the music. This version, however, is full-bodied, sweet, and transparent, just the way we like 'em.
Another example, if we needed one, of how the sound affects the ability of the listener to appreciate the music.
Track Commentary
The Track Listing tab above will take you to a select song breakdown for each side, with plenty of What to Listen For (WTLF) advice.
